'Purple Store' embraces cupcake fundraiser

Alexa Hill, store manager of Hill's Country Store in Kaneville, stands near a display of purple cupcakes at the store, which is at 2S133 Harter Road, Kaneville. The store is participating in the Great Purple Cupcake Project to support epilepsy awareness. Those wishing to participate can buy a cupcake or sugar cookie for $1, and proceeds will go to the project.

KANEVILLE – Alexa Hill is hoping to cover the inside of Hill’s Country Store with purple paper cupcakes, which would be an appropriate interior decoration for the “Purple Store.”

Hill, 25, is the manager of the store, which is at 2S133 Harter Road in Kaneville. She is participating in the Great Purple Cupcake Project to support epilepsy awareness. The effort will go through Sunday.

She has made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with purple frosting, as well as cupcake-shaped sugar cookies. Those pastries are on sale for $1 each, with 50 percent of the proceeds to benefit the Anita Kaufmann Foundation, which benefits from the project. Patrons also may purchase a paper cupcake for $1, with 100 percent of those proceeds going to the charity. The paper cupcakes are put up on the wall of the store.

It is the second year Hill has participated in the project. She said she raises $600 last year. She said she was inspired because one of her mother’s cousins died in his 20s of an epileptic seizure. She said he didn’t know he had epilepsy.

“A lot more people than you think are affected by epilepsy,” said Hill, who added that some customers will tell her of their connections to epilepsy when they purchase a cupcake.